


Tossed Waters Have Settled

by QuickSilverFox3



Series: Whumptober 2020 [13]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: All tags don't apply to all drabbles, Buddy Breathing, Drabble Collection, Drowning, Exiled Booker | Sebastien le Livre, F/F, Found Family, Gen, Healing, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Injury Recovery, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani is an Incurable Romantic, M/M, Missing Scene, Pneumonia, Post-Canon, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27152912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickSilverFox3/pseuds/QuickSilverFox3
Summary: “Go,” Nicky mouthed, pressing uselessly at Joe’s chest with his one free hand, but the other man merely held him closer.[No 13. BREATHE IN BREATHE OUT Delayed Drowning | Chemical Pneumonia | Oxygen Mask]
Relationships: Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien & Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf & Nicky | Nicolò, Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Nile Freeman, Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Whumptober 2020 [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947016
Comments: 6
Kudos: 77
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Tossed Waters Have Settled

Joe breathed into Nicky’s mouth, hands cupping the other man’s face carefully. The oxygen mask hissed silently at his side, bubbles escaping to the surface when Nicky could not, and Joe refused to. 

“Go,” Nicky mouthed, pressing uselessly at Joe’s chest with his one free hand, but the other man merely held him closer.

It was, ultimately, a futile effort. Nicky knew he was going to die at least a few more times down here, with the lingering fear that this time would be the last to keep him company. But he didn’t want Joe to die continuously alongside him.

* * *

There was a small air bubble, trapped in the curve of the metal face of her tomb. Quynh watched it as she sank, screaming out her curses on everyone involved. 

Drowning was painful, and it wasn’t going to end. She watched it, a tiny taste of freedom born from her fury, in the nights when the moonlight filtered down far enough to pierce through the black water. 

It would stop one death for a few more moments. So she waited. She waited until she saw through another’s eyes, a broken man’s, to show him that Andromahce could not be trusted.

* * *

It started with a cough. Nile had scrubbed the salt from their clothes, Booker pressing kisses to her shoulder blades as he sewed up the hems on a spare pair of jeans for her. They both knew drowning more intimately than any other death, and they startled awake through the night.

The cough shifted to gasping breaths. Nile dug her nails into Booker’s arm, his face pale and worried, fingers flying over a keyboard as he searched for something, anything.

Drowning was painful, prolonged, agonising, played out behind her eyes when she slept. But drowning on dry land was worse.

* * *

“Something’s not right.”

Joe paced, always in constant motion even in the brief moments Nicky managed to pin him onto one of the uncomfortable waiting room chairs.

“It’s a hospital,” Nile murmured, leg bouncing as she twisted her cross between her fingers. “These things take time.”

“She’s still being assessed,” Booker reported, stopping himself from reaching for his flash as Nicky’s eyes burned a hole into him.

“How come we didn’t notice?” Joe’s pacing was increasingly frantic, Nicky reaching up to pull him gently onto his lap.

“We healed before we  _ could _ notice,” Nile mused with a shrug. “Andy doesn’t.”

* * *

Booker awoke choking before he had even opened his eyes. Pain lanced through his head and he fell out of the hotel bed hard, the impact knocking pills and powders to rain down on him.

He still wasn’t used to being alone, centuries after his first death spent in the company of the others until Andy couldn’t take it anymore. 

He coughed, rolling onto his knees as blood splattered onto the floor. He drowned when he slept, now he was drowning when he was awake. 

Booker pulled himself to his feet, limbs weak and trembling, and crawled back into bed.

* * *

“How are you holding up?”

Andy smoothed her hand across Nile’s shoulder blades, lightly bumping her forehead against Nile’s temple. 

“Could be better.” Nile’s voice was hoarse, throat torn by her constant coughing. A yellow plastic bowl rested against her knees, the inside stained red. 

Andy laughed, shaking her head gently. “It won’t last, but lungs take awhile to heal. Not too sure why and I was never in a hurry to experiment either.”

“Better me than you,” Nile sighed, the words triggering another coughing fit, Andy a comforting pillar of strength at her side as Nile shook and trembled.

* * *

Nicky’s eyes snapped open the moment the light changed as Joe slipped into the room. Joe’s heart threatened to stop at the sight of his love lying still, tubes and wires coiled around him with a mask covering his face. 

He was still smiling, recognisable in the crinkling of his eyes, the way his hand reached out for him.

“I’m here, my love. Booker is getting our escape organised.”

Nicky couldn’t respond, but his hand slipped into Joe’s as if they had been made for each other, squeezing it tight enough to try and piece the broken fragments back together.

* * *

“I’m not wearing it.”

Andy’s hair was grey now. There were many other memories in the house in Malta threatening to overwhelm Booker, but he couldn’t focus on them. He watched Andy push away the oxygen mask in Nicky’s hands, her movement strong even as her hands were wrinkled. 

“You going to come in, Booker, or continue to darken the doorway?” Andy called, turning as Nicky took advantage of her distraction to drop the mask onto her lap and dart away.

He stumbled forward, gingerly perching on the sofa next to her, staring at the lines of her face.

“Hi.” 

* * *

Joe watched the guard leave, the curve of his ribs intimately acquainted with the sole of the man’s boot before beginning to pull and struggle in his bonds. The oxygen mask stuck to his skin, the heavy ties biting into his jaw, rubbed raw and beginning to bleed. 

Where was Nicky? Joe leant forward, ignoring the pain flaring down his trapped arms as they took his weight. 

He should be frantic, trying to escape in anyway he could, but he found the emotions muted, head starting to loll. The air he was breathing smelt sweet, but there was no escape.

* * *

Quynh pulled in her first breath of air in years the moment her head breached the surface. Her wounds had healed as she died and floated, dragging herself closer and closer to the surface, but she could still remember the bone-deep pain of rusted metal cleaving through her.

The world was so much larger than she remembered, floating on her back with her eyes closed against the piercing sunlight. Her chest ached as she breathed, the motion foreign now, an instinct she only half remembered.

Freedom was hard-won, but she had survived. But for now, Quynh floated, smiling to herself.


End file.
